The Unforgivable Curses
by SlytherinMessenger
Summary: Bell sees deaths. The deaths of almost everyone she meets. When Prof. Longbottom receives a letter that points to the likelihood of Bellatrix Lestrange still being alive Bell is called on to view Lestrange's death and her findings are shocking. Eyes are turned to Voldemort's son, the Potter's daughter and Bell as they get themselves caught up in very dark magic. Cover by RT Cipher.
1. If You Die in a Dream

_I stand on the highest and flattest of the jagged boulders that I can find, curling the toes of my bare feet around an edge in order to avoid sliding about on the slick, wet surface of rock that has been worn smooth by centuries worth of tides. The ferocious wind roars in from the sea, pushing back off the cliff face behind to stir up the wild ocean that surrounds me and to whip my cloak and hair around my body in a frenzy of dark colours. Rain and salty sea water splash into me from all sides, soaking my clothes and turning my hair into a straggling dark nest of snakes. As thunder and lightning coincide in an almighty rumbling crash and a flickering of blinding sky light I throw out my arms with a scream of excitement and shout back over my shoulder._

_"Come on out here, it's fun!" I yell loud enough to make my hoarse voice battle through the winds._

_The boy back on the smooth round pebbles of the beach just stands there helplessly. He waves his arms expressively and although I can't hear his voice I can see from the manner in which he tries to make himself heard that he is imploring me to come back to the safer portion of the English coastline._

_The large expanse of wicked rocks that I stand in the centre of separates us, while the roaring, foaming, angry ocean reaches up to me through the gaps._

_"Come back, it's not safe," his voice barely reaches my ears, muted by the weather and heard as a child's would if stood at a much further distance._

_I laugh delightedly as excitement and adrenaline fills me up and comes pouring out with an overwhelming surge right through to my fingers and toes. The sky laughs back, roaring and churning._

_"You're crazy!" he yells, flinging his soaked and half frozen arms into the air. "And I want my cloak back. It will sink to the bottom of the ocean with you if you don't get the hell back here."_

_I undo the button at my collar and throw my arm back, flinging the dark green cloak, with the help of a strong current of wind back to him. I hear him call something out but cannot decipher it. It was probably accio. He can have his cloak anyway. I don't feel cold anymore. My furthest extremities long ago left the party of my usual sense of touch and feeling and the main part of my body doesn't seem to care anymore._

_"Please you're going to fall. I may not have known you for long but I've known you for long enough to be sure that I don't want you to die just yet," he looks so desperate for my return that a pang of guilt briefly flashes through my heart. My resolve just strengthens._

_"Come on, I'm just having a bit of fun. I won't fall. If you weren't meant to climb on them they wouldn't have put such fun rocks right here."_

_For a moment he looks like he's about to explain the use of rocks as a way of forming a barrier against coastal erosion but then he freezes as though he's noticed something terrible._

_"No!" he yells as he half runs, half stumbles across the wet pebbles towards the rocks and me, his newly returned cloak flying behind him and for a moment I want to giggle at my mind's eye vision of a fairy-tale prince running to catch a falling princess from her tower._

_Then I realise the same thing that he did a moment before._

_An even bigger and wilder crash of seawater comes rumbling towards me as my foot suddenly skews sideways across the rock's edge, slicing open and spreading a large splash of alarming red through the water as I tumble towards the raging sea ready to grind me to nothing on the jagged rocks._

_The last thing I hear before the water closes over my head is his yell._


	2. Mrs Riddle

The water gurgled over her head for a moment and she gasped and choked on the air that roughly assaulted her face as her senses came back one by one. There were the warm, soft covers pulled up to her chin, the soft morning sunlight lighting the bedroom around her. . .and her sister singing a song that she had heard way too many times.

"Shut up Sophie," she groaned throwing the nearest thing to her, which was luckily a small pink teddy bear, at the noisy thing that was trying to do its makeup in the dressing table mirror.

"Why are you doing that there? You always get ready in front of the bathroom mirror."

Sophie laughed, slightly too high pitched even for her. "I can brush my hair wherever I want can't I? I don't have to go to the same place every day."

Bell sat up, pushing the covers out of the way and rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "But you do go to the same place every day."

She stretched her arms above her head and shook off the last of the sleepiness before realising why her sister was sat where she was.

"There's someone here isn't there. One of my friends."

Sophie's eyes widened, caught out, as Bell continued.

"And you're staying with me in our room because you're trying to protect them from me again."

Sophie sighed. "I just don't want you hurting anyone else. You need to be more careful what you say to people, they have feelings the same as you and not everyone is so aware and accepting of their own flaws, they get upset when you point them out."

Bell snorted. "I didn't point out her flaws I called her a lying, frizzy haired, sneaky cow."

She put her feet on the floor and pushed her long, dark curls behind her shoulders. "She needed a wakeup call."

"No," Sophie defied firmly. "She needed someone to be nice to her and help her. Have you any idea what her family is like? You shouldn't make assumptions about people when you don't know the whole story"

Bell tilted her head to the side slightly. "I made no assumptions."

Her sister spun around with a sigh. "Then what was-"

"Her life is not my problem but her being a bitch to me and people I care about was. Now it doesn't have to be, she's too scared I'll tell her boyfriend about-"

"No Bell, I don't want to know anyone else's secrets."

"Anyway," said Bell as she stood up and fished around in a pile of clothes for something that she felt like wearing. "What do you plan on doing? Following me everywhere and chaperoning my every meeting with fellow human beings?"

"If I were you I wouldn't say fellow." Sophie muttered.

Bell looked up and made a questioning noise.

"It's fine I didn't really say anything. I just don't want you falling out with Zoe, she's one of the only people I can think of who still manages to put up with you."

"Oh," Bell smiled. "It's Zoe that's here?" Prompting a short laugh and a question about who else it would be from her sister.

* * *

><p>"Tom. . . Tom. . . Tom" Lily hissed shaking the shoulders of the boy slumped asleep on the floor in front of her.<p>

"Ugh, uh. . .um. . .oh, right. Whaddayawant?" The boy took a little while to wake up and become coherent and Lily quickly became impatient.

"You need to get up," the last word was slightly strained as she tried to heave him to his feet. "You can't sleep here any longer, you'll get caught. Let's get back to the dormitory before someone realizes you're gone."

Tom opened one eye a little, saw the potions classroom around him, shivered in the cold then simply pulled his cloak - temporarily serving as a blanket - tighter around him and decided it wasn't worth waking up for.

"Oh for goodness' sake you lazy idiot, if you don't get up now you're going to be caught and then you're going to have to explain why you're here and then you'll have to sleep in the dormitory every night from now on." She put on her best bossy face and tilted her head to the side. "Is that what you want?"

He sighed. "Alright, alright. I'm getting up."

"Come on then," Lily whispered as Tom stood up, pulled his cloak on properly and followed her to sneak back through the Slytherin common room and into his dormitory.

* * *

><p>Sophie felt the urge to look around her before she walked towards the manor house as though she was being followed or watched but she mentally shook herself – it was just the guilt making her feel that way – and ignored the urge, walking up the driveway towards the impressive old home.<p>

It was in a rather beautiful state of partial decay, the important things like the windows intact but no effort had been made to make it look more looked after as was clear by the ivy growing up on side of it and the dark grey tint to the old stone. The door had clearly once been painted a deep red colour but that was now peeling away to show dark wood underneath.

She reached for the bell by the door because there didn't seem to be a doorknocker or a conventional button bell and she doubted knocking with her fist would be heard in such a huge place but the door was opened before she could ring by a girl of about the same age as her wearing a slightly ragged dark dress. Everything about the girl seemed a bit washed out apart from her bright red hair. Sophie pulled her hand away from the bell awkwardly as the girl smiled emptily and offered to take her coat.

Allowing her pale pink jacket to be taken by the girl who was even slighter than her five foot two slim frame she looked around the entrance hall. It was slightly smaller than the grand halls with their chandeliers and double staircases that she saw on TV but it was elaborate. The ornate but slightly rusted metal staircase to her right lead up into a corridor that was full of nothing but darkness and an elaborate lopsided light fixture hung above an ominously stained rug.

The girl saw where Sophie was looking and apologised.

"There is no cleaner anymore.

Sophie nodded and tried to look friendly and understanding. "Of course."

Then the girl gestured towards the rug that was the topic of their discussion.

"Yes, she died more messily than was really necessary."

Sophie attempted to hide her shock but the girl wasn't paying any attention to her anyway.

"Right," she said, her voice strained as she tried to look anywhere but the girl or the rug.

"Such a shame. . ." The girl's voice trailed off as Sophie, assuming she was talking of the death of the cleaner nodded and the girl continued to gaze at the rug.

"It had such a pretty pattern."

Sophie made a sharp intake of breath and thought that maybe she should leave, this was not at all what she'd expected but then again she hadn't really known what to expect.

"Ok, please could I have my coat back, I think there's been a mistake." She pretended to look at her phone while the girl just continued to gaze into the distance.

"Oh yes, see, complete mistake, wrong address. In fact wrong town all together. I'll be off now, Nottingham or somewhere, maybe Portsmouth, I don't know could be anywhere." She laughed nervously and turned towards the door only to whip back around at the sound of high laughter coming from above the stairs.

Sophie couldn't see into the darkness of the upstairs corridor as she heard a woman's voice.

"I do apologise for my maid. She's a little disturbed. I forget that visitors may find her a little strange."

With a bit of a strut to her walk a woman, rather pretty Sophie had to admit, emerged from the shadows to the top of the stairs and smiled welcomingly if slightly predatorily at Sophie. A black curl broke free from her thick hair and fell across her face as she spoke and gestured to the building around her.

"What do you think of my house? I have only had it for a few years, barely managed to tear the ghastly muggle family away from it."

Assuming the word muggle must be some posh person's insult she'd never heard Sophie smiled nervously and said something about the formidable grandness of the place causing the woman to smile self-indulgently.

"Yes, it is rather special isn't it?" Then she looked back down towards Sophie and started to descend the staircase.

"Welcome to my home. You may call me Mrs Riddle"

* * *

><p>"Bell, I thought I told you ten minutes ago to empty the bloody dishwasher. I'm getting fed up of you being so idle."<p>

Bell was sat at one of the desks in the bedroom that she shared with Sophie, comparing homework essays with Zoe to make sure they'd both done the right thing.

She blew a gust of frustrated air out of her mouth at the words her mother was shouting from downstairs.

"And I thought I told you half an hour ago that I have a friend over and we're doing homework."

She pulled her chair closer to the desk, shaking a tube of tip-ex and applying it to an incorrect spelling. Her jaw tightened and her shoulders tensed as her mother shouted up the stairs again.

"When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it as soon as I say so." Her voice was getting increasingly angry.

Bell squeezed the tip-ex tube too hard and a puddle of white liquid spilled out from the metal end, spreading across her carefully written work.

Zoe noticed first. "Um, Millie."

Bell slammed it down on the paper, her hand now smeared with white and a splatter of it dotting the table.

"Well maybe if you told me what you expected before you started yelling at me for it!" Her voice got louder and faster towards the end and she sprung to her feet with angry energy, chair thudding to the floor and extracting a startled squeak from a slightly frightened Zoe.

From the sound of it her mother had lost all calmness completely.

"Just shut up and do it!" Her voice took anger and flung it against the walls but far from subduing her, Bell was just further enraged.

"Oh my God, I could totally murder that bitch right now."

Zoe looked up at her from where she was sat. "You don't mean that literally do you?"

"Oh of course not," Bell snapped.

"You know," Zoe began nervously, "You did sort of get defensive really quickly so-"

"That's because she got offensive really quickly. She just started having a go straight away." Bell didn't allow her friend to finish her sentence.

"Yes," Zoe started, "but-"

"Oh just go away." Bell turned to look at her irritably and hooked her foot around the bottom of the door, kicking it open inwards.

"Go on." She nodded towards the open door.

"Sorry," said Zoe, "I didn't mean it, I was wro-"

"Just leave me alone!"

Zoe murmured sorry again, backing out of the door and blinking back tears.

* * *

><p>"As part of the Ministry of Magic's new M.U.G.G.L.E initiative you will be the first Hogwarts school year to spend these school weeks at a muggle school in the muggle world. Oh my, isn't this exciting."<p>

The excitable young muggle studies teacher stood at the front of the Great Hall looking like she was about to launch through the roof with excitement while a sea of bored, blank fifth year faces tried not to look too upset at the idea of having to live without magic for a whole half term.

Not all of the students were completely blind to the potential for fun this could have though. Quite a few Ravenclaw students were looking forwards to a more in depth study of muggle culture and a few conversations about experiments and possible outcomes could be heard whereas Tom and Lily were mostly just contemplating the pranks they could pull and mayhem they could cause.

Their discussion of how to sneak their wands with them was interrupted by a particularly loud squeaking noise that seemed to have been emitted from their muggle studies teacher.

"2 sickles she'll faint again."

"No, a whole galleon that Professor McGonagall will have to sit her on the steps and talk her into calming down again and then her excitement will set Professor Longbottom off too like last time."

"Done."

Their bet was to be forgotten about soon however when Professor Longbottom, having just received an owl, stood up suddenly, his face having turned a sickly pale colour.

"Bellatrix." His voice sounded strangled.


	3. The Changeling Twin

_I can see a normal sized room in a pleasant enough house. This time I am not part of it; just watching._

_A tired looking woman with flaming red hair and freckles across her cheeks sets a tiny baby down in a cot._

_"Is Lily finally asleep?" a man standing in the doorway gazing at his wife and daughter whispers._

_"I think she's getting bored of me, it's your turn next time," she teases, still talking quietly so as to not wake the sleeping baby._

_He walks towards the cot to look at the peaceful infant before pulling his wife close to him and tilting his head down to touch hers as a stray lock of dark hair falls to the side revealing a lightening shaped scar on his forehead. It's a beautiful scene and I would be glad that for once I am seeing something so lovely if I didn't know that it will turn before long._

_"How about I have her while she's like this and when she starts crying or smelling bad you can have her," he jokes good-naturedly. "Besides, she could never get bored of her own mother."_

_As he leaves the room the woman turns to her baby. "Even if you do get fed up of me you're going to have to put up with me every single day Lily, I'll never leave you, even when you want me to."_

_Starting at loud laughter from someone who seems to be visiting, she turns and, with one last glance at Lily, hurries downstairs._

_For a few minutes the room is quiet besides from the background noises of a family and friendly chatter from downstairs and my heart, which I can feel even if I haven't brought it into this vision with me, starts thumping harder in anticipation of the horror about to come. Am I about to witness a cot death? Or is the baby going choke on the mittens she chews in her sleep. Maybe she'll roll over and be smothered by her blankets. I don't want to see this but I can't look away; I have no eyes to close and no body to turn away, no voice to call out and warn the mother and no hands to pick up Lily and make sure she's ok._

_My wondering is halted when I hear the quick, faltering footsteps of a young child clambering up the stairs and padding across the landing right into this room. A young boy looks around, slightly confused, only realising half way into the room that it isn't what he was looking for. I can tell by his unfamiliarity with the layout that he must be the child of one of the visitors downstairs._

_Just as he is about to walk back out, the window swings open, and he strides across the room to close it with that proud look that can often be seen on the faces of children who have remembered how to be grown up and helpful like their parents told them._

_My heart clenches, "Don't!" I want to scream, "Run away!" because I am familiar with how these visions play out; someone always dies and I don't want it to be either of these children._

_Reaching out to close the window he freezes, at first I think he is simply startled at whatever he has seen outside but then there is a brief flash and his arm snap to his sides, his body becoming rigid as a board before falling backwards against the bed. I wish that the bed hadn't been there, the thump would certainly have roused the suspicion of the adults below._

_An arm holding a wand comes through the window followed by a woman cradling something in her other arm. She wears a dark dress and the hood of a black cloak is pulled up, hiding her face from my view. Dark curls spill out from the hood, further obscuring her face, and as she moves towards the cot I realise the bundle cradled in her left arm is, in fact, another baby._

_She looks down at the boy and smirks._

_"Don't you worry little boy," she speaks in a sing song voice. "You're going to come in quite useful."_

_Unable to move or speak only his terrified eyes dart about the room before settling on her and following her towards the cot._

_She sets the baby down on the bed next to the boy and leans over to pick up Lily._

_As I see them both properly for the first time I realise that the babies are identical. I don't just mean in the way that most babies look pretty similar but in the way that they are absolutely, completely identical to each other. They must be twins._

_Replacing Lily in the cot with the baby that she brought in she turns away and points her wand towards the window._

_For a long moment nothing happens and I start to get more and more nervous waiting for something drastic to occur until an old man floats through the widow and, with another flick of the wand, hovers above the bed. He is as rigid and frozen as the little boy. After a moment the woman seems to focus until there is a sudden, bright flash of green light and the man goes limp, falling to the bed, clearly dead._

_She turns away from me and I cannot see what she's doing for a moment as she reaches towards the baby with whom she replaced Lily._

_I try to cry out and her head whips around, followed by her wand, pointing straight at me as she watches intently to try and see me._

_It was almost as though she had heard me but I knew she couldn't have. They never do._

_Turning back towards the boy she strokes his face gently as he whimpers slightly and I can see the way he is trying to pull himself free of the curse even though he cannot move. She raises her wand above her head, pointing it down at him with a wicked smile and his struggles double, terror invading his eyes for just a second before the same green light hits him and the rigidness leaves but he becomes even more still._

_I still can't see what she does from my position as she leans over Lily's replacement again before turning around, surveying the scene of death with a quick detached glance, and pulling herself out of the widow, Lily in her arms._

_I know that it's pointless, that I don't have a mouth, or vocal chords or whatever it is that allows people to speak but I can't help but try to shout for the infant's mother as the woman climbs out of the window. Again, she pauses and looks back at me, staring into thin air for a moment before disregarding it and continuing out._

_For a long few minutes I stay there. The room is still, it's only inhabitants being me, a young boy and old man, both dead, and Lily's twin._

_Then the baby heaves a breath into her little lungs and begins to wail._

_Still, I cannot leave, even as the mother re-enters, following the sounds of a baby's cry and gasps at the scene before her, only looking for the shortest of moments before running over to make sure that her daughter is fine._

_She just stands and looks down at the crying baby, a blank look on her face._

_"Lily?"_


	4. Secrets

Bell started and looked around her bedroom, ascertaining her surroundings and shaking off the vision before picking her violin back up from her lap and continuing to practice as though nothing had happened.

* * *

><p>The bright red steam train huffed its way between the late summer trees that had stayed lush and green as though they hadn't noticed the cooling air and grey sky. Lily leaned through the open window trying to see through the trees as she had been told there were pixies in these woods.<p>

"I don't know where you got the idea from. To be honest I don't even know if pixies live in woods or how many can actually be found _outside_ of Cornwall," Tom spoke from the seat opposite, watching her worriedly over the top of a muggle studies book.

Megan pulled her head back in for long enough to smirk at him.

"I thought you knew everything."

Tom swatted at her with his book.

"Lily, you're going to take your head off. All it will take is an overhanging branch and you'll be decorating the side of the train a slightly different shade of red," Tom looked at her imploringly and stuck his bottom lip out, smiling when Lily laughed at him and sat back down.

She reached out her gloved hand to pinch his cheek.

"Aw, anything for little Tommy-"

She was cut off by a snarl as Tom swatted her hand away. She shrank back in her chair slightly.

"I'm only teasing, in fact you did it first, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," Tom snapped and sat still for a moment glaring angrily into his book until his face softened and he looked up at Lily sheepishly.

"I'm sorry," his voice was much gentler, "I just didn't get much sleep again."

Overlooking the fact that she knew that sort of outburst wasn't caused merely by a bad night's sleep Lily focused on the matter he had mentioned as the train continued to chug along soothingly. She leaned out of their compartment door and looked both ways then, satisfied that there was no one too close and the food trolley was still in the other carriage she slid the door closed and sat back in her seat. She shuffled forwards to lean close to Tom and speak in a low voice, tugging her gloves further up her wrists as she did.

"You're not still thinking about telling a teacher are you?" She looked at him sternly, conveying her distaste for the idea with her tone and expression. "They'll either think you're mad or that you're doing some sort of dark magic."

Tom looked down and furrowed his eyebrows. "Well it is dark magic isn't it? What else could something so awful be? I mean I'm doing this in my sleep and this is not normal at all Lily so stop trying to act like it is. Maybe it's just me. It's in my blood."

Lily sighed. "You are not your father Tom and this isn't your fault. We can sort it out, just don't tell any of the professors, they'll only assume the worst just like you're assuming."

Tom reopened his book and settled back further in his seat. "If anyone else dies I have to tell someone. This can't go on."

"Fine."

The door to the compartment slide back.

"Anything from the trolley?"

* * *

><p>Sophie looked nervously around the large, high ceilinged room as she made her way towards the armchair to which Mrs Riddle had gestured. It was gloomy with shadowed corners as only the light that snuck around the edges of the curtains and through the open door had managed to enter.<p>

"Well go on then, sit down." Mrs Riddle snapped and Sophie quickly dropped herself into the seat.

Mrs Riddle sat on the sofa opposite and turned to her maid who was hovering next to a second doorway that led not to the entrance hall but to another dark room. "Drinks and cake Lee. You should have a few slices of that cake left if you haven't been eating my food again." This last comment was emphasised with a raised eyebrow and a sharp look.

Sophie thought that Lee was a rather strange name for a girl.

"So my dear," the woman's voice was high pitched and careful, "You would like to know about your sister."

Sophie started to reply but then stopped abruptly as a thought struck her.

"I didn't say she was my sister in the letter I sent."

Mrs Riddle just laughed.

"I looked into it as soon as I received your message of course. You did take a while to reply though."

Sophie had chosen not to reply at first. She had seemingly randomly found a letter under her pillow that looked like some sort of advertisement. It stated that if you sent a letter back to the address stated requesting information about someone whom you suspected may be more than human you would be sent the details needed to see a person who knew all about these things. It had seemed rather untrustworthy and Sophie had hidden it away so she could think on it for a while but had eventually come to the conclusion that it couldn't be a trick because how else would someone know to put the letter under her pillow and it definitely wasn't Bell's idea of a joke as, when Sophie had hinted, she had seemed clueless and Sophie could tell when her sister was lying.

"Go on then," Mrs Riddle impatiently pulled Sophie out of her thoughts.

Sophie took a moment to look into the woman's face and to gather herself before she began.

"My sister, Bell, she's not normal. Sometimes strange, unexplainable things happen when she is around and she has a serious superiority complex, she thinks, or rather knows, that she's special." Sophie took a moment to think and her face became more concerned and serious looking before she continued. "And she sees deaths. Many of the people that we know she has seen. When she sleeps she often dreams of the deaths of her friends and even when she's awake sometimes she just gets lost in her daydreams and when she gets the chance she'll draw and paint scenes of people dying in lots of different ways. I've had to dispose of a lot of them as having them would seem suspicious . . . when they come true, I mean. And the fact that they contain real people. Well it's just a bit morbid."

Mrs Riddle continued to watch her face intently for maybe a minute after Sophie stopped speaking and then she nodded. "I have some ideas but I don't want to give you false hope or bad news that isn't necessary. I will need to know more information about this girl and any people she might associate with. I'll need to know what she does and what she tells you and others before I can make an informed conclusion."

Sophie knew straight away that she shouldn't agree to this. It was a violation of Bell's privacy and Mrs Riddle could be up to something. She didn't like all this magic and intrigue and worrying situations. She had always liked things to be carefully organised and things that were so far out of the ordinary did not fit into her idea of organised. She stood up and Mrs Riddle stood up with her.

"I'm afraid I can't be doing that. It simply isn't fair on Bell and I can't be sure what your actual intentions are."

To her surprise Mrs Riddle put up no argument.

"I understand," she said with a smile, "Do let me know when you change your mind."

Sophie couldn't get out of there fast enough.

* * *

><p>Bell glared at the paintbrush that sat on her bed as though it had committed some terrible act against her. Her face was screwed up in look of intense concentration and her lips moved as she whispered to herself.<p>

"Move. Come on you stupid thing I've seen you do it before. Come here."

She held her hand out as though she expected the brush to jump into it and stared harder. Shutting out everything else but the paintbrush and what she wanted it to do Bell focused on nothing but that she needed that paintbrush to be in her hand. In the past things like that had happened, objects throwing themselves into her hands or simply disappearing but only when she had been in a situation where she direly needed them to.

Focusing so hard that she thought her brain might start leaking out of her ears she kept on thinking about how much she needed that paintbrush to come to her outstretched hand. If it didn't she was useless and her power was just a delusion.

The paintbrush twitched, rolled over then jumped into the air. She concentrated harder and it started to move slowly towards her, jumping and hesitating as though being forced against its will.

The door crashed open and the paintbrush dropped back to the bed. Bell jumped as though caught doing something bad, whirled around and was greeted by the sight of a red faced Sophie with a stormy face and clenched fists.

Sophie marched over to her bed and flung her coat down with an 'ungh.' This wasn't like her usual kind, thoughtful and calm temperament.

"I am furious – absolutely fuming," she said the words 'furious' and 'fuming' as though they were underlined, slowly with the first sounds emphasised.

"I can see that," Bell nodded towards the previously flung coat and the slammed door, "Both of those words start with 'fu' – I wonder if that's a coincidence."

Sophie ignored her.

"I should break up with him, I really should," she sat down on her bed.

Bell looked disinterested, as though she'd had this conversation many times before.

"Yes you should. You should leave him right away," Bell said distractedly while she rummaged through a pile of stuff on the floor looking for her laptop charger.

Sophie laid back onto her bed.

"But I couldn't. I couldn't leave him."

Bell turned to a different pile and continued rummaging.

"Why ever not?" her tone was almost mocking.

"You wouldn't understand," Sophie sighed.

"Nope, I certainly don't," Bell emerged from the floor triumphant with a charger in her hand and grabbed her laptop to plug it in and sit on her bed with it.

Sophie rolled over to face her.

"You don't understand anything to do with boys."

Bell laughed, "Of course I do. Did you know they have this thing and it's not like what we have, it's shaped like a-" her words were cut off by a flying cushion.

"You think you're so funny," Sophie tried not to laugh.

"Did you just throw a throw cushion at me?"


	5. Train

_This time it is my sister._

_I've seen this one many times before, sometimes it changes as deaths that have not happened yet are not set in stone but it's almost always this one._

_She's walking to school and she's running late. She has her headphones in to listen to fast music and I know that's what she's listening to because when she's in a hurry she likes to listen to music that makes her go faster._

_It's a normal grey, foggy morning with ice on the ground and the bare, leafless trees are silver with frost – the world is drained of colour and life and devoid of any movement apart from my sister's hurried steps along the empty road and the sound of a distant train. I always wonder if this is somehow embellished by my imagination because the train I hear chugs along like an old steam engine and that couldn't possibly be real._

_Then, as always, I hear the noise of another, much larger, more modern train approaching, a rumbling click-thump-click-thump getting closer and closer._

_If I tell you that the level crossing in front of Sophie has just closed you can probably guess what is about to happen next. She is running late after all._

_Every single time I see this I want to yell at her that she should wait. It's better to be late to school than to be killed by a train but she doesn't listen. In reality I'm sure she can hear neither me nor the train and that is why, after looking both ways, she runs for it. I can't judge her for her recklessness because I would have done the same if I was running late and could clearly see that the train was still a long way off._

_She slips on ice._

_I'm not entirely sure what happens next but for some reason she freezes up and does not move. Her body goes rigid and she does nothing but lay there as the click-thump-click-thump gets louder and louder._


End file.
